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“Humans never learn”: the philosopher John Gray on New Atheism, the God Debate and why history repeats itself

The 21st century is shaping up to be as bloody as the one that preceded it. And that comes as no surprise to the philosopher John Gray. History is cyclical — and a blind belief in science and progress is a mistake, he tells Bryan Appleyard

Danger signs: North Korea tests four Scud ballistic missiles, March 2017NEW YORK TIMES

The Sunday Times, April 22 2018, 12:01am

Once upon a time an American writer called Sam Harris wrote a book called The End of Faith, about how silly it was to believe in God. The book sold many copies, so some other people — Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett, AC Grayling — wrote the same book. This made them all quite a bit richer and turned them into a movement called either Militant Atheism or the New Atheism. They were all fairly clever, but none of them was even half as clever as another philosopher called John Gray. (I would say he’s the greatest, but he’s a mate so you might think I’m biased.)

Gray became “bored and frustrated” with what came to be known as the God Debate, so he…